Abstract:
This thesis was concerned with the jumping and landing techniques used by volleyball players and the injuries that this movement can cause, focused on the knee and patellar tendinopathy. Past literature has considered injuries caused by jumping and landing in volleyball as well as the use of preventative and rehabilitation methods to reduce the likelihood of injury. The use of gait analysis to compute kinematics, kinetics and muscle force analysis is used to investigate jumping and landing techniques to reveal what may be contributing to the high prevalence of patellar tendinopathy in female volleyball athletes. Three angles of approach were tested to see if any one angle had significant effects on jumping or landing kinematics, kinetics or muscle forces. These angles are commonly used to run an 'A quick' in a volleyball game. Hypotheses predicted that the 45° approach would be more damaging to the patellar joint due to the high twist movement required. This thesis showed that there were no significant differences found between the three angles of approach. Analysis showed minor differences between the 135° approach and the other two angled approaches (45° and 90°). This suggests advice to athletes and coaches is that no one angle is any better biomechanically. However, limitations meant we could not look at cruciate and collateral ligaments which may advise one angle being preferable to reduce injury than another.